The Rabbit Hole

I’ve been working with the same set of 8 or so negatives for the past few weeks and it’s getting a little boring. Made a few prints that are pleasing enough. But not pleasing enough to feel comfortable introducing new negatives using the same printer script as these 8. That’s because over the past few weeks, alongside the satisfactory prints, there’ve been too many muddy ones.

Muddy prints are not uncommon with gum printing. A quick Google search proves the point. It’s easy to make them muddy, but gum prints don’t have to be that way. The main culprit is often poorly sized paper. But I’m printing with the paper I recently sized and that doesn’t seem to be a problem. This new paper is really sweet. I’ll talk about why another time.

Gum printing has so many variables that can effect a finished print. In general, successful pre-script negatives behaved beautifully for the first few layers, but often enough, prints got pretty muddy throughout the middle coats of an 8-12 layered print. That’s how these new negatives have worked as well.

Over the years I’ve learned some tricks to get through the Big Muddy Middle and onto some exciting finished prints. But these new negatives are not like any I’ve ever worked with before. And they’re not cooperating in the usual ways. So I’ve started a second round of prints with the same negatives. I think I figured out a few things in round one that I want to test out in round 2.

So I’m still wading a little gingerly into a big time printing session. I’m up for one. I prefer working with a lot more than 8 or 10 negatives like I have recently. 25 or more negatives at the same time is a lot more stimulating on a day to day basis. But for now, I’ll continue to test the new negatives I’ve been working with the past couple of months before I add any new images to the mix.